Accenture’s War for Talent in India

HRM CASE ANALYSIS

Section D
Group 10

GAURAV SAINI 2011IPM031

PRIYANKA BHAGAT 2014PGP273
P. KARTHIK 2014PGP240
SIDHARTHMAHAJAN 2014PGP363
SOUMYADEEP CHAKRABORTY 2014PGP377
VAIDA HEMACHANDAR 2014PGP410
VATSALA ARORA 2011IPM118
Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................................3
Introduction......................................................................................................................................................3
Problem Statement...........................................................................................................................................4
Analysis.............................................................................................................................................................4
Alternatives......................................................................................................................................................7
Recommendation.............................................................................................................................................8
Implementation................................................................................................................................................9
Executive Summary

Accenture, with more than 180,000 employees and operations in 49 countries, generated 19.7 billion USD in
revenue with a market capitalization of 26.4 billion USD. Accenture diversified its offering in India from
consulting to IT services and BPO services since 2001. It had followed several HR practices to meet its
ambitious human resources requirements. It has moved from the decentralized HR structure to centralized
structure to achieve the operational effectiveness. They have extremely innovative in their human resources
practices. They have standardized the process of hiring of IT professionals. They have extremely successful in
maintaining growth without compromising qualities in these services. They have developed frameworks like
PCMM (people capability maturity model) to evolve the HR and overall business practices. The entire structure
has been developed keeping the people in the centre.

However, Accenture wanted to refocus on their consulting business and wanted to develop a global talent and
innovation network of consultants in India. It demanded hiring of 2000 consultant in one year. Consulting as a
job is extremely different in nature when compared to the IT jobs. Consultant need higher industry and domain
expertise compared to IT. Moreover, roles demanded not only industry specialists but also PhDs in economics,
statistics, social sciences etc. Since Accenture does not have experience of hiring in such high number of
consultants, it challenged the existing practices.

The report deals with the nuances of the existing HR and recruitment model of Accenture. It does a comparative
analysis of the skills of a consultant and an IT professional. It also investigates the similarities between the
existing system and that required for hiring consultants. It can be observed that some of the existing practices
can be directly incorporated while hiring the consultants. The report also offers alternatives to the existing one
like partnering with third party recruiters, developing standardized processes etc to cater the existing problem.
Finally it talks about the implementation plan so that one can roll out the plan.

Introduction

Since 2001, Accenture has primarily hired IT and BPO professionals. It is evident from that fact that it had
37000 employee strong IT arm. The number is extremely high considering it only started operation in 2001.
Thus people start recognizing Accenture India as an IT focused wing of Accenture.

In 2006, Accenture has again started focusing on its management consulting arm. There are trying to develop a
global talent and innovation network (GTIN) that will perform roles across functions, including customer
relationship management, finance and performance management etc. Thus they needed to hire 2000
management consultant in a span of year. Consulting required specialized skills and industry expertise.
Consulting demands higher knowledge capital compared IT or other businesses. Thus people with PhDs in
economics, mathematics, statistics and social sciences need to be recruited.

Initially, the HR team was decentralized and was aligned to respective businesses i.e. management consulting,
IT and BPO. But when Accenture India worked with Accenture global HR it restructured its HR service
delivery model into three key components. The new HR service delivery model helped in controlling cost,
growing head counts and scale of deliverables in India. Centralized service increased the integration of HR
processes and eliminated duplication. HR performance was measured through three sets of key metrics-
recruiting, effectiveness of core HR functions and employee engagement. These three elements gave positive
impact on overall business; as a result Accenture India was recorded as the highest engagement employer across
any Accenture geographic unit worldwide and scored significantly higher than the other Indian industry.

However, this hiring of 2000 management consultants pose unique set of challenges to Accenture like attracting
and finding the right candidates, scaling up the recruitment process. The scenario puts Jill Smart on the spot to
come with proper tangible solutions to solve the problem.

Problem Statement

To successfully hire 2000 management consultants in a year by attracting most diverse talent pool without
compromising on the quality?

Analysis

Accenture has already built a centralized HR structure to support the HR operations in India. Thus far they have
been extremely successful in meeting the requirement in the IT Services and BPO arms. They have risen to the
occasion and developed system that has enabled them to meet the needs. IT services structure has evolved
specially over the years and it manages 37000 employees. However, the current problem is a little different.
They need to hire 2000 management consultants in a year’s span. The number itself might not seem very
daunting but the there are a few challenges,

a) Building Accenture as a brand that is focused in management consulting. The reason is of particular
importance since it has done major hiring only in IT Services and BPO. People have started having the
perception that it is an IT focused company.
b) All the structure that has been developed like functional recruitment model are primarily developed
keeping IT in mind. These industrial hiring systems are designed primarily for IT sector, these cannot be
directly replicated for management consulting.
c) The number of hiring is not very high. However getting quality applicants for the roles might be a little
difficult.
d) As a company, Accenture was unsure of the channels to reach out to these future employees. This is
primarily because the backgrounds of these people are extremely diverse. Thus they may not use the
traditional channel that is used by the IT professionals.
e) Positioning the company attractively so that it can compete with the other competitors to get these
people on board.

Each of these problems can be addressed using different existing HR strategies of Accenture and redeveloping a
few to solve the existing problem.

The typical job description of a management consultant who would be working in the global talent and
innovation network (GTIN) is:

a) Solve major business problems of the clients i.e. big corporate, start ups or NGOs
b) Support the client teams with the research and analysis
 c) Perform functional roles across domains spanning from customer relationship management, finance and
performance management to talent and organizational performance
d) Travel to the client site for interactions and problem solving
e) Create new revenue opportunities for the consultants in the field by using research and analytics to
develop new models and other content
f) Develop fresh ideas to expand the businesses of Accenture Consulting

Since the job requirement is not the only factor. We need to investigate the typical skill requirement for the
same, so that one can comment about the exact fit for the role,

a) Require great research and analytical skills

b) Need to be a great communicator
c) Need to have in depth knowhow of a particular industry and / PhDs in either economics, statistics, social
sciences etc
d) Openness to travel to new geographies in order to solve major client problems

The existing model is analyzed in order to adapt the model to the needs of the management consultants.

Compone Recruiting Practises Good practises Additional Lacked as

nt Process as per recruiting need for per
Step guide managemen recruitment
Involved t consulting guide
hire
Candidate  Anticipat  Mapping  Continuous  Larger  Relied on
Sourcing e the business evaluation of pool size, generic
Need demand talent pool that too of competen
 Specify  Planning  Analysis of industry cy model
the Job  Optimize future needs specialists  Limited
 Develop supply  Succession plan  Realistic pool
the Pool through  Sills articulatio  Looked for
various requirement for n of talent only
recruitment organisation needs external
channels  Defined  Brand candidate
 Initial demand of job appeal to s
Screening  Specified interviewe  No large
 Resume relevant skills rs pool of
validation  Identified team candidate
 Hiring the candidate s
profiles need to work
o Skill-set with
o Responsibili  Tapped external
ty level partners
o Location of
work
 Sourcing
team
evaluation:
o Deadline
o Cost
o Conversion
 rate
metrics
Candidate  Assess  Engaged  Throughout  Focus on  Using a
Managem the with engagement highly preset
ent candidat candidate with the sophisticat evaluation
e throughout candidate ed skill set criteria
 Close the process  Interviewer (functional  Included
the Deal  Assessment Feedback skills) too many
on present involvement  More steps
evaluation  Not swayed by integrity  Not
criteria extraneous into hiring included
 Three factors process top
interviews:  Not looked  Enriched stakeholde
o HR endlessly process rs in
o Technical  Not used wrong  Few candidate
o Final interviewers tweaks assessme
 Additional  Reference would not nt
steps on checks be enough  Failed to
case basis  Structured involve C-
interviews level in
 Well trained, discussion
high calibre s
interviewers  Not
 Showed ensured
commitment to compensa
candidate’s tion is fair
success to other
 Demonstrated employees
active support
for candidate’s
interest
 Involved hiring
manager
personally, and
not only the HR
On-  Integrat  Smooth  Ensured  No lead  Not using
boarding e the transition till selected time for veteran
New candidate candidate did training top
Comer came on not continue  To be performer
board prospecting for treated as s as
 Building a alternative ‘plug and mentors
deeper employers. play’ 
connection  Structured on-  More cross
with the board process cultural
candidate  Multiple touch teaming
 Buddy point with the
Program candidate like
 Gave phone, e-mail,
information buddy program
 to help them  Made sure new
become comer checked
productive regularly with
 Background mentor and HR
checks of  Provided
candidates adequate
support and
monitoring
 Not treated
new hire as a
‘plug and play’
Capabiliti  Applied  Developed  Develop  Not
es technology software different removing
to the dashboard evaluation bad hires
recruitment  Innovated criteria of within the
process process candidate first year
 Evaluation improvements managers  Not
metrics:  Broke down the  Focus on identified
o Demand hiring process efficiency and
fulfilment  Evaluation of more than rewarded
o Quality of candidate speed in excellent
the person managers recruiting interviewe
hired  Met the  Need rs
o Cost per changing need accurate  Not
person of growing forecasting holding
hired business for assessors
o Delivery  Offered different accountab
cycle time efficiency and skill sets le for the
o People speed with quality of
hired flexibility their
monthly  Not hanging on evaluation
per to bad hires s
recruiter  Regularly
o Candidate
reviewed
surveys recruitment
scores practises

The realization of a robust process maturity framework for internal HR processes to ensure better experience to
employees and clients, Accenture adopted the PCMM model. The people capability maturity model’s main
objectives were to enhance human capital capabilities so as to influence business outcome. This resulted in a
culture of continuous improvement within the workgroup, the unit and the organization. PCMM showed
positive impact on business as well as changed the evaluation criteria for tracking the success of a business. It is
easy to implement in the place where every employee work together or in a location that operates with
consistency every day but it will be quite challenging for the employees who move around to different locations
such as in management consulting. However in this case, the challenge is reduced as GTIN does not demand
much travel.
Alternatives

In their quest to hire 2000 management consultant Accenture can consider the following options

a) Developing their existing recruitment model to hire management consulting and taking help from
internal network of Accenture

As the required skill sets of management consultants is entirely different from earlier talent pool.
Accenture needs to modify their existing model which is based on supply chain model. However, it may
not have to device a totally new strategy. Accenture can modify the IT strategy to fit the needs of the
consulting hiring. As Accenture is a global organization present in 89 countries, it can definitely reach
out to its global counterparts to understand the problem better. Moreover, Accenture India can follow the
best practices followed by them.
Since the recruitment period is not very long. They need to start the process at the soonest. This process
might turn out to be costly but it will help Accenture India in developing capability which will be useful
for them in future. Thus they need to extract the practices that are applicable to the consulting and apply
them accordingly. The structure might not change at all. The execution might change a little.

b) Developing/following the standard procedure which is used by other management consulting firms

This option might speed up the process of hiring of management consultants which is critical for
Accenture to meet. But totally following the competitors might not at all be apt for Accenture. As it has
always been a people focused company; thus blindly following the competitors might not be sustainable
one. Moreover, the cultural aspect will be totally ignored in that case.

c) Standardized hiring process similar to IT

Standardization of hiring management consultant is extremely difficult to achieve. As the skill possessed
by the consultants differ in greatly. Unlike IT that deals primarily with functional skills, consulting
demands skills of differ dimension. Moreover it also demands higher intellectual capital. Thus
standardizing the entire process might not be achievable. However some of hiring processes such as
interviews (case interviews) can be standardized.

d) Outsourcing entire process to third party talent management consulting

This option can be chosen under a conservative approach if Accenture feels uncomfortable about scaling
up their hiring procedure for 2000 management consultant within a span of 1 year. This method will
require high commitment from Accenture and third party for correct hiring, which may create hurdles
for the company by increasing the time involved in coordinating among them.

Recommendation
On analyzing the pros and cons of the above alternatives we recommend that Accenture should go with the first
option. It is the best alternative available to them and they can also leverage their existing strengths in order to
achieve their target. They are already level 5 PCMM certified which will be useful while modifying their
existing recruitment procedure. Apart from this it can also take help from its internal network which will bring a
huge amount of value addition in the process. Developing in house capability of recruitment will also increase
the confidence of various clients of Accenture.

In addition to this, they can take help of external recruitment agencies for scouting and attracting the best talent
pool for the role. Because achieving all at once including the scale might be extremely difficult to achieve. Once
the process is robustly developed they can use the same for future hiring.

Implementation

At Accenture one of the first step should be to get away with their image of “IT & BPO off shoring company”,
Accenture strategy is one of the coveted firms in the consulting domain they should properly communicate this
message. Vehicles used for this would be entirely different from what they used for IT and BPO recruitment.
They should focus on selling Accenture as a brand and consulting domain job.

Next major steps should be the search of right interviewers who can identify and recommend the potential
candidates. Accenture can approach its external talent pool or its clients for this purpose. After this they can
target best B- School in the country namely IIM’s and few others who possess the best brains of the country.
Apart from this it should also focus on attitude, relevant skills and industry work experience. They might also
use employees to spread positive word of mouth regarding the company.

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